Midwinter of the Spirit Read Online Free PDF Page A

Deliverance,’ Huw said. ‘Always carry plenty of fuse wire.’

PART TWO

VIRUS

3

    Storm trooper

    T HEY WENT TO look at Hereford Cathedral – because it was raining, and because Jane had decided she liked churches.
    As distinct, of course, from the Church, which was still the last refuge of tossers, no-hopers and sad gits who liked dressing up.
    Jane wandered around in her vintage Radiohead sweatshirt, arms hanging loose, hands opened out. Despite the presence of all these vacuous, dog-collared losers, you could still sometimes pick up an essence of real spirituality in these old sacred buildings, the kid reckoned. This was because of where they’d been built, on ancient sacred sites. Plus the resonance of gothic architecture.
    Merrily followed her discreetly, hands in pockets, head down, and didn’t argue; a row was looming, but this was not the place and not the time. And anyway she had her own thoughts, her own decision to make. She wondered about consulting St Thomas, and was pleased to see Jane heading for the North Transept, where the old guy lay. Kind of.
    They passed the central altar, with its suspended corona like a giant gold and silver cake-ruff. On Saturdays, even in October, there were usually parties of tourists around the Cathedral and its precincts, checking out the usual exhibits: the Mappa Mundi, the Chained Library, the John Piper tapestries, the medieval shrine of…
    ‘Oh.’
    In the North Transept, Merrily came up against a barrier of new wooden partitioning, with chains and padlocks. It was screening off the end wall and the foot of the huge stained-glass window full of Christs and angels and reds and blues.
    Jane said, ‘So, like, what’s wrong, Reverend Mum?’ She put an eye to the crack in the padlocked partition door. ‘Looks like a building site. They turning it into public lavatories or something?’
    ‘I forgot. They’re dismantling the shrine.’
    ‘What for?’ Jane looked interested.
    ‘Renovation. Big job. Expensive. Twenty grand plus. Got to look after your saint.’
    ‘Saint?’ Jane said. ‘Do me a favour. Guy was just a heavy-duty politician.’
    ‘Well, he was, but—’
    ‘Thomas Cantilupe, 1218 to 1282,’ Jane recited. ‘Former Chancellor of England. Came from a family of wealthy Norman barons. He really didn’t have to try very hard, did he?’
    Well, yes, he did, Merrily wanted to say. When he became Bishop of Hereford, he tried to put all that behind him. Wore a hair shirt. And, as a lover of rich food, once had a great pie made with his favourite lampreys from the Severn, took a single succulent bite, and gave the rest away.
    ‘Must have had something going for him, flower. About three hundred miracles were credited to this shrine.’
    ‘Look.’ Jane pushed her dark brown hair behind her ears. ‘It’s the power of place . If you’d erected a burger-bar here, people would still have been cured. It’s all about the confluence of energies. Nothing to do with the fancy tomb of some overprivileged, corrupt…’
    She stopped. A willowy young guy in a Cathedral sweatshirt was strolling over.
    ‘It’s Mrs Watkins, right?’
    ‘Hello,’ Merrily said uncertainly. Was she supposed to recognize him? She was discovering that what you needed more than anything in this job was a massive database memory.
    ‘Er, you don’t know me, Mrs Watkins. I saw you with the archdeacon once. Neil Cooper – I’m kind of helping with the project. It’s just… I’ve got a key if you want to have a look.’
    While Merrily hesitated, Jane looked Neil Cooper over, from his blond hair to his dusty, tight jeans.
    ‘Right,’ Jane said. ‘Cool. Let’s do it.’
    Under the window, a fourteenth-century bishop slept on, his marble mitre like a nightcap. But the tomb of his saintly predecessor, Thomas Cantilupe, was in pieces – stone sections laid out, Merrily thought, like a display of postmodern garden ornaments.
    There were over thirty pieces, Neil told them, all